In To Kill A Mockingbird, does his name have any meaning to it? Like the greek god Atticus-lawyer-who-saves-many?
Or was this name just made up? (it’s not exactly a common one now is it?)
You just don’t quit do you? I would think you’d get the message from your Dill thread (whom, by the way, was Scout’s pimp if you didn’t get that down). But I’ll help you out here, since you seem so desperate. See, Atticus is really his nickname. It’s what he used to call his attic when he was a very young toddler (you know how toddlers make up the weirdest words out of normal English, like ‘tees’ for ‘trees’). His real name was Cornelius. So anyways, Atticus was chained in his attic (or as he called it, the ‘atticus’)until he was 26. He then became a lawyer so that he could bring his tyrannical parents to justice. It’s never really explained in the book, as it’s more of a flashback. He kept his nickname to show Jem and Scout that even people with the worst childhoods can prosper.
I think you have a pretty serious mistake there, bean_shadow. His real name was Erasmus, not Cornelius, and his age when he was released from the attic is never given. Maybe you could do with a closer reading yourself.
I believe Atticus Finch was named after T. Pomponius Atticus, the patrician, statesman, and close friend of M. Tullius Cicero. In Latin, Atticus means “Greek,” or more specifically, “Athenian.”
Good reasoning. I heard Lee was trying to incorporate childhood friends, stories, feelings, into the novel, so I’m trying to tie in the name Atticus to it all.
Dill is a strapping lad in true Bill Gates fashion.
Atticus, on the other hand, appears quite meek, probably because of his slight, almost Bob Hope-like nose. It’s in fact the reason his night vision goggles kept slipping shortly before he shot the rabid dog (Benji).
Kudos to Harper though. Writes two freakin’ books and gets a valley named after her.
From my very own publication “Demanton’s Notes On ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’: The Movie”:
"Dill was the very picture of blackness and whiteness, with various shades of gray throughout. Imagine, if you will, a brother in gray kneepants and a gray shirt. His skin shone with vibrant grayness, and a scowl of contempt for the rural Alabamians was perpetually present on his face, for he was a Meridian, Mississippi man through and through. His hair, black, was each morning meticulously parted with a buttered biscuit, as was the fashion of the time."
“Atticus Finch dressed the part of the dapper lawyer type, his gray suits rakishly contrasting his black shoes, and was known to sport a gray hat and gray tie which, in effect, said to the world ‘Don’t mess with Atticus today, he’s wearing gray’. But messed with him they did one day in upstate New York, a day of infamosity known as the Atticus Massacre, in which he whacked out some cops or something. His name became the rallying cry for ne’er do wells throughout the country, most notably an erstwhile bank robber named Sonny Worczick. 'Atticus Atticus Atticus!’”